The Beauty of Nature

Ok -- to start things off, was I complaining about the rain, gray skies, etc. a couple of months ago?  I take it all back.  I want more rain!

I don't want torrential, flooding rains, just the nice, soft, pitter, patter, soak into the good Earth kindof rain.  Why oh why the change of heart?  Because everything is green and glorious!!!! Flowers are blooming, trees have budded out -- and it's just gorgeous (sans - the mowing the grass duties).

We were slightly ahead early in the year, and now we are slightly behind the average rainfall.  But, (fingers crossed) it looks like we will be treated to showers this weekend.

Before I get back to work -- here's a couple of pictures I shot today -- showcasing the beauty of nature -- all created by our magnificent God!

A Yellow Crested Night Heron that has made it's home in a tree in the front yard of my friend Carolyn's house.  He and his mate appear to be setting up home in one of the large trees.

Here's to a great weekend!

:^ \  Frances

Yellow makes me happy!

First of all, my favorite color is black. I love black. Matter of fact, I think that for every one piece of clothing I own that is not black, I have at least four items that are black. I figure that black is slimming, it goes with everything, and it never goes out of style. Black makes me comfortable.

Now yellow, yellow makes me happy. Yellow makes me smile. Most of my house is painted in yellow.

Earlier today, I let the dogs out and noticed that yellow flowers are popping open along my fence line. The yellow is so vibrant, it's almost blinding against the dull grays and browns out back.

 

We have a front headed towards this area that may bring us a nasty ice, sleet, and snow mixture. It's supposed to hit late Weds evening thru Friday. I'll be thrilled if we are blanketed with pretty white snow -- but it sounds like it'll be the mean, nasty stuff. Keep your fingers crossed that it blows on by!

Well, at least I have some bright cheery flowers to remind me that Spring is just around the corner!

Cheers to you all -- and have a great week!

;~D Frances

Color

I can be a spaz about putting colors together.  I either like lots of color -- or very little color -- it just depends on my mood.  When trying to put a card template together -- I can get totally lost in "my vision" and have colors all over the map!  I recently came across a tremendous tool that I use  when I'm in a "lots of color" mood.

Its the Color Scheme Designer 3 application.  This dandy little tool makes selecting the right colors so much easier.  I highly recommend this site if you need help with color schemes in making card templates or even in your blog or web design.

Anyhoo -- it's time to get dinner started.

Have a great evening!

PS -- I'm in a "only a hint of color" mood today!

;~}  Frances

BYSP Christmas Party Part Deux

More Pics. You know, this girl really should have switched to Road Runner or something faster. Uploading pictures can really, really bore someone who has the attention span of a gnat. Here are some more pics! There are a couple of pictures of the cake (can you believe someone didn't finish their cake ----- rrrrrrrr --- did they not know I was out of my favorite candy and could have taken their cake home??????? ) I'd mentioned in Part I. If you like chocolate mint candies -- you will be a big fan of this cake. Enjoy the pics!

Using Off Camera Flash

Wow, I just found out that my camera has a setting where my on camera flash can act as a master (commander mode), which can fire my SB-900 off camera. So, I've been playing around with it in a dark room (my work room). I found the video on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVBhnJnDcnM&feature=related this morning and thought I'd try it out. Sure enough, If I'd go through the thousands of menu settings on my camera, I would have eventually found it (right, in a million years). It's way to cold to play outside, so I turned off all the lights in my work room, set the camera to shutter priority, and played with both using the on camera flash and off camera flash together, and just firing the off camera flash. Wow, it's fun! Here's one of the pics using just the off camera flash hitting the silk flowers from the side (and up). It just goes to show, one should really take the time to read the manual from cover to cover. And no, I am not taking the rest of the day to read the manual. I will continue to find wonderful videos and websites with cool info!

Sunflowers

Well, decided to try out my macro lens. To be honest -- I need lots more practice. Good thing for me -- the sunflowers can't talk back. Here's two of the 67 I shot this morning! Again, the texture came from the website http://www.cgtextures.com/

Wedding pics

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1 Carol, Sharry and Amy, 2 & 3 Amy and Sharry, 4 Laura putting on her strappy shoes, 5 Carly, 6 Amy's shoes, 7 Carly, Laura, Amy and Emily, 8 bride's bouquet